by Catherine Dilts
Gone fishing! That’s my excuse
for failing to post an article August 26th. To celebrate our
retirement, my husband and I planned an ambitious see-and-do-it-all trip to
Alaska. A two week dream trip of bucket list proportions.
At the last minute, I packed
Curious George. It’s a lot to make room in your luggage for a plush monkey, but
he had accompanied us on many adventures over the past eighteen years. How
could we leave George behind for this once-in-a-lifetime trip?
We started a tradition of photographing Curious George in scenic places. The grandkids are grown, but they still delight in seeing George’s travels.
When we headed out of our hotel
for the Seward docks, I stuffed George into my daypack. At least, I thought I
did. We signed in for the Kenai Fjords National Park Cruise. Queueing up, I
made a horrifying discovery.
George was missing.
Once we were settled into our
assigned seats at a table on the boat, I went through my pack. No George. Had I
left him at the hotel? No. I was certain I placed him in the pack. George must
have fallen out.
I consoled myself with the
thought that we’d had a good run. Hopefully George found a new home, and would
live out his days happily in Seward. <<sigh>>
I stared out the window at the
ramp as the rest of the tourists boarded. I glimpsed red. Leaning forward, I
stared at a young man with a daypack. Tucked into the straps was George!
It had to be my George. How was I going to get him back? Wander around the boat all day, harassing young men with my quest to search their daypacks?
I tried to quell the rising
anxiety. He’s just a toy monkey. Finally, everyone had boarded. Our tablemates
had yet to arrive. We wondered if the fully packed boat might be missing a
couple souls, when two young men slid onto the booth-style seats across from
us.
“George!” I squealed. “You have
my monkey!”
Hilarity ensued as they confirmed they’d found George outside the hotel, abandoned. They assumed he was a child’s toy. I admitted we had owned George for nearly two decades, and took him on trips with us. But having failed to keep him safe, perhaps these young men deserved to be George’s new companions.
“No, you have a long relationship
with George. We can’t take him. Besides, we just lost our monkey.”
They told us the saga of Pingo,
their thrift store find at the beginning of their motorcycle trek across
Western Canada and into Alaska. Sadly, Pingo fell from his perch on a
motorcycle headlight unnoticed.
What are the chances of four
people losing their monkeys, meeting up on a fjord cruise in Seward, Alaska?
The Missing George Mystery was solved, but the trip had even more oddities in store for us. Two hours out from the port, a woman broke her foot. The boat had to turn around. Most of the passengers were from a cruise ship. They would miss out on the rest of the tour because they had to return to their cruise ship at a specific time.
Those of us not with the cruise
ship were offered the chance to resume the tour. Of course we jumped on the
opportunity. We went from a packed tour boat of two hundred tourists to a
couple dozen.
We had the run of the boat, and a crew suddenly with few guests to attend to. It was heaven. We saw sea otters, puffins, whales, and sea lions. We heard glacier ice snapping like thunder, and watched slabs of glacier fall into the water.
I got a mocktail chilled with a
chunk of glacier ice.
When I texted the trauma of losing George, then having him returned by Canadians, the grandkids made sure we kept an eye on him the rest of the trip. George made it back to Colorado with us.
Exposure to new sights, sounds,
smells, and people was good for my imagination. There are dozens of
opportunities for mayhem at sea. I’m sure I’ll come up with some tour boat
mysteries soon.
